Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo first mentioned a successor to the Nintendo 64 on March 3, 1999, a day after Sony's announcement of the PlayStation 2. Two months later, on May 12, 1999, Nintendo of America's chairman Howard Lincoln officially announced the console, which would be codenamed "Dolphin." In classic form, Nintendo remained quiet for over a year about "Dolphin," preferring to focus on the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color at E3 2000. It wasn't until August 24, 2000, a day before Spaceworld 2000, that the company officially unveiled the GameCube, the end result of the "Dolphin" project. The heart of the GameCube is a 485MHz, 0.18-micron, IBM-produced CPU called the "Gekko." The Gekko is based on the PowerPC architecture but optimized for game playing. The system's 202.5 MHz video processor, called "Flipper," was designed by ArtX and is being produced by ATi. ArtX is headed by Dr. Wei Yen, who played a major role in the development of the Nintendo 64's graphics chip. For its storage medium, the GameCube uses 8-cm discs based on a proprietary DVD technology, developed by Matsushita, that can hold up to 1.5GB. Since they are smaller than traditional DVDs, the GameCube is not able to play DVD movies, though through a partnership with Nintendo, Panasonic manufactured and distributed the Panasonic Q, a hybrid DVD-player console with GameCube hardware. The GameCube's controller combines elements from just about every controller before it, as well as introducing a few innovations of its own. In addition to the standard analog stick, D-pad and shoulder buttons, Nintendo has added an analog C-stick (often referred to as the camera-stick), moved the Z-button to the right shoulder and rearranged the button configuration so that there is a large A button surrounded by the X, Y and B buttons. The shoulder buttons L and R are both analogue, allowing the console to know how far they are pushed in, for things like throttle in racing games. Like the Nintendo 64, the GameCube features four controller ports. The regular GameCube memory card holds 4 Megabits of data, but the Digicard Adapter will allow for flash memory cards that can hold 64MB to 128MB, effectively giving the console the functionality of the failed 64DD add-on for the N64. A choice between a 56K modem and broadband adapter will be available for online connectivity, but neither of these add-ons is included with the console. Unlike the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color, which connect using an adapter, the GameCube will interface directly with the Game Boy Advance via the Game Boy Advance to Nintendo GameCube Link Cable to transmit information back and forth. Although many use the acronym NGC, its actually GCN, since NGC is already taken by another console, the Neo Geo Color handheld. Some might use simply GC. The last title released for the Gamecube was Madden 08. Launch Line-up USA: *''Luigi's Mansion'' *''Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader'' *''Wave Race: Blue Storm'' Hardware Like its predecessor, the Nintendo 64, the Nintendo GameCube was available in many colors. The two most common, released during the console's launch, were "Indigo" (the standard color used in most early advertising) and "Jet Black." "Spice" (orange) GameCubes were also offered as standard models, but only in Japan. However, the standard controller was widely available in this color outside of Japan as well. Later, Nintendo released GameCubes with a "Platinum" (silver) color scheme, initially marketed as a limited edition product. Other limited edition colors and styles were also only released in Japan. Following Nintendo tradition, the GameCube's model numbers, DOL-001 and 101, are a reference to its codename, "Dolphin." The official accessories and peripherals have model numbers beginning with DOL as well. Another Dolphin reference, "Flipper" is the name of the GPU for the GameCube. Panasonic made a licensed version of the GameCube with DVD playback, called the Panasonic Q. Benchmarks provided by third-party testing facilities indicate that Nintendo's official specifications, especially those relating to performance, may be conservative. One of Nintendo's primary objectives in designing the GameCube hardware was to overcome the perceived limitations and difficulties of programming for the Nintendo 64 architecture, thus creating an affordable, well-balanced, developer-friendly console that still performed competitively against its rivals. The development hardware kit was called the GameCube NR Reader. Model numbers for these units begin with DOT. These units allow developers to debug beta versions of games and hardware. These units were sold to developers by Nintendo at a premium price and many developers modified regular GameCubes for game beta testing because of this. The NR reader will not play regular GameCube games, only special NR discs burned by a Nintendo NR writer. Category:Consoles by nintendo